If you live in an old house are you starting to think about how you are going to adapt it for future energy efficiency measures?

[flashbac]

My house is insulated in the attic but it's an old house with high ceilings and stone walls. EPC rating is D. One room still has the period features that make installing internal insulated plasterboard unfeasible. I rely heavily on my gas boiler. I very much doubt a heat pump is going to heat the house to an acceptable standard.
I support Green initiatives but I don't have a bottomless pit of money. I feel the government should be raising more awareness. Maybe that will come with time but I'm wondering if I should be doing more to get my house in order, especially if they bring in mortgage rules that make lenders penalise those with homes like mine because they are rated below C or B in terms of energy efficiency.

Solar panels are our biggest step.

There are heat pumps that can run at the same temperature as a gas boiler. Any improvement to insulation is a good thing.

Yes. We have a listed Tudor cottage. No prospect of getting permission for any of the things we'd need to improve insulation sufficiently for a heat pump to be viable.

Yes. I have solar panels but have otherwise decided the upstairs is for winter and the downstairs living room - 3 outside stone walls - is for summer

I’m in a similar position. We’re renovating a Georgian property. Seriously considered putting in a heat pump but just wouldn’t work with the general lack of insulation and difficulties to put in UFH. So going with gas central heating, insulating where we can (tricky w mansard roof) and looking at traditional methods like shutters + heavy curtains, draft excluders etc. Can’t currently afford double glazing of sash and curved bay windows atm and v restricted as it’s grade II listed. But keen to hear what others are doing!

@Daftasabroom

There are heat pumps that can run at the same temperature as a gas boiler. Any improvement to insulation is a good thing.

How can that be possible? *off to google* My understanding is that heat pumps are effective only if you have underfloor heating, and your home is supersealed.

@flashbac that’s what we were advised too - the insulation was a big issue for us. I did speak to someone who didn’t have UFH throughout but in some rooms had extra-large radiators instead but that was in a “newer” house (1930s or 50s I think) and they were able to properly insulate.

@flashbac the Daikin Altherma HT and the Vaillant aroTherm Plus can both output at 75C, the higher temperature output is not as efficient but even at 55C the coefficient of performance is still over 3.

Not quite what you asked, but MiL lives in a north facing 120 year old brick-built farm house which we will inherit at some point. It has an oil-fired boiler which feeds radiators upstairs and on half the ground floor. An open fire in the centrally-heated reception room, and a wood burner in the otherwise-unheated one completes the picture. The kitchen and its stone floor it totally unheated. There is nothing which you could realistically describe as insulation, although at least the windows are now all double-glazed (in timber frames...). We were there over Christmas when the boiler packed in and it was not pleasant even with both fires and every single electric heater still on the shelves in B&Q. It's not just the heating that's bonkers: the one kitchen light switch operates no fewer than 22 bulbs at a time, and with 16 lightbulbs in one reception room it's still too dark to read comfortably.

All things being equal, we'd love to live there after MIL shuffles off but I cannot see how the house could become sensibly insulated and heated without spending huge sums of money. It's got solar panels, but that doesn't increase its energy efficiency. A ground source heat pump would provide enough heat but it would have to run almost constantly throughout the winter and we'd still have to replace all the radiators, install a few more or underfloor heating, add insulation to every wall and floor, and replace one front and three back doors. I can easily see it costing £75k with mind-bogglingly enormous disruption and potentially much, much more if - for example - we want to use aerogel rather than something cheap.

Like OP, I want to be green but I'm still using a 17 year old Nokia 6310 because we can't scrape together a few hundred for a smartphone. Borrowing the money at the moment is a non-starter. Once we inherit the house it will be mortgage free and we'll probably be close to retirement ourselves, so no Bank is going to have an interest in it or us. We could sell our current house once MiL shuffles off and use the equity in it to pay for the work, but that was earmarked for funding retirement.

Rationally, it would make more sense to sell it now at current valuations and let some unsuspecting fool deal with it in future.

There are also new models of heat pump coming through which will work at a higher temperature such as the new Vattenfall one.

We're holding off major works at the moment as we think the tech will improve hugely over the next five years but we're saving to put in a GSHP. Electricity wise the building is listed but have solar panels at the bottom of the garden which provide power for the cars.

@Otherpeoplesteens if the property isn't listed or in a conservation area external insulation could be really effective.

We've spent a lot over the years on high spec double glazing (that made the biggest difference), loft boarded out and thoroughly insulated (2nd biggest difference) insulating the conservatory on the south west wall, solar (pays out more than our total energy, also does summer hot water) and a new oil fired Rayburn 600 series (on timers) for cooking /heating/hot water (no gas, we have to have oil). I've also upgraded the curtains to thicker and thermal lined, so we're really very cosy now. Only a smallish house so I'm expecting we'd be a B now up from probably F when we bought it - used to be draughty and cold.

This is the new hope!

www.current-news.co.uk/news/vattenfall-launches-high-temperature-heat-pumps-that-can-directly-replace-gas-boilers

In a listed house. So can do virtually nothing because of needing to get specialist permissions. The UK will have to face the fact that it has a lot of old housing stock and being precious about listed buildings is insane given the climate crisis. We should already have a Department for the Environment with a Climate Cabinet Minister. That department should be issuing new guidance, training insulation and boiler conversion teams and issuing instructions to all households. We face South and could make use of solar panels but they will be forbidden by the local authority. I think the technology will of courses improve massively and I am prepared to invest in our house to do our bit to reduce reliance on fossil fuels but I honestly do not know what to do.

We have a vat of oil in the garden to fuel our oil fired boiler and central heating. We have part stone floors. I am trying to go back to my non central heating household early years and get me and my family used to living in a colder house and wear layers but it's hard.

I'd love to know what I can do more. We have an electric car and electric cooker and sustainable electricity supplier.

Been thinking of a domestic wind turbine for a while. We are in a very windy area and it would make a big difference. Local council is generally sympathetic to them but not sure how the neighbours will feel about it. Would rather avoid bad feeling.

It sound like some of you live in grand old houses/listed. Just to add for balance, my house is a bog standard 2 up 2 down in a crappy northern town.

We have an 1870 single brick house

We have spent 25k so far

On new aaa rated sash windows and doors
Damp proofing a large area
Wall Insulation in main bedrooms
New boiler
Some New radiators

It's made a massive difference but we haven't done it for the environment we have done it to increase our comfort in the house save money on heating and add value.

It was horrible to live in before.

Any one know how much electricity the ground source heat pumps need to run?
With energy prices going up so drastically it must be a factor to think about too.

We have a grade two listed house within a conservation area - so far planning will not allow me to replace the kitchen window as they say it’s an original (it’s not! Joiner says it’s about 25 years old - he can tell by the fixings) despite the wind/rain/beasts coming through it’s so bad
So I think the authorise will have to stop being so precious about permissions
And also actually visit properties instead of using covid as an excuse not to come out and relying on photos

We've just put new upvc double glazing in and it's made a huge difference. I know people don't like them but a log burner has saved us 100s over a year and that includes buying the logs. Next step is to insulate the loft

God knows. 200-year old flat, single-glazed sash windows, Category A listed building.

I wonder if what will eventually happen is community power and heat generation; so like smaller, local power stations run on renewables. Germany does this kind of thing a lot I believe. So buildings and streets like mine, where because of the nature of the buildings you couldn't put in heat-pumps or electric car charging even if you wanted to, can access or buy green power from a neighbourhood scheme in some way.

@Daftasabroom Not sure about listed status but nobody has ever mentioned it to me, and I can't imagine it's in a conservation area - it's on the edge of a northern shithole better known for race riots.

I've never seriously considered external cladding, partly because three of the external elevations have unheated outbuildings up against them (including the delightful unheated downstairs bog, which I call The Brass Monkeys) and partly because my father's house (abroad) burned down in a wildfire about ten years ago, long before Grenfell, and the very idea makes me a bit twitchy.

The main issue though is that it's an old dairy farm and the basement is the former cooling room. As such it is deliberately exposed to the elements, and the wind blows right up the internal staircase into the house, not to mention through the ground floor floorboards etc...

It would probably make more sense to knock it down and rebuild it than try to retrofit it. I wonder how many people are in a similar position?

Sadly dp is on a crusade to spend our cash on this. Currently have solar panels and battery, and done a lot of insulation under floors and in loft. Next is a air source heat pump, complete new radiators and external cladding to insulate which are costing a fortune. There's some subsidies to help with costs over time but a huge initial outlay. I personally wouldn't get it done now as I think costs will have to come down in future to help most people contemplate it, but have been outvoted...

We have a 1930s cottage that was very cold the first winter we moved in. Over the last 5 years we’ve replaced all the windows with very good double glazing, and DH has literally taken the whole house back to the studs, floorboards up, everything. Every room now is now insulated under the floorboards and behind the plasterboard. We had a new boiler and central heating system fitted, but I think it’s the windows and insulation that’s made the biggest difference.

It’s really not a practical solution for the average household though- we did it as part of a complete renovation, but it was obviously incredibly disruptive!

I've never seriously considered external cladding,

Neither have I. I live in a chocolate box style stone cottage.

Transforming it into an ode to brutalism really doesn't appeal.